Chuck Versus the New Year's Kiss
by Imagination-Parade
Summary: All Chuck wants to do is kiss his girlfriend at midnight. When you're dating a spy, that's easier said than done.


_Hi everyone! So I'm pretty nervous about this story because I've spent the last 3 years of my life and almost my entire Fanfiction "career" in _Bones_-land. First _Chuck_ story here. Posting something for a new fandom is scary, but I just love Chuck (and Chuck and Sarah) so much, I couldn't resist! I also know I'm a little late with this story, but inspiration didn't quite hit on time this year, haha. _

_Chuck, of course, isn't mine, and please review! _

* * *

All around the world, people were celebrating the impending beginning of a new year with parties, champagne, and cozying up to the one they would kiss when the clock struck midnight and the new year officially began. In Burbank, California, Chuck Bartowski was no exception. A party was occurring in the courtyard of his Echo Park apartment complex. While his friends and neighbors danced and mingled, however, Chuck sat alone on the edge of the center fountain, staring at the entrance. Morgan walked over and sat next to him.

"Are you still bumming out over here?" Morgan asked. "Come on, man. Liven up. Get in the spirit!"

"I think I'll continue to leave the general merriment to everyone else, if you don't mind," Chuck replied, barely glancing over at him.

Morgan looked towards the entrance to the courtyard, trying to see what Chuck was seeing. "Sarah still not back yet?" he asked.

"No," Chuck sighed.

"Where is she anyway?" Morgan asked.

"I don't know…Bulgaria or something really far away like that."

"Who sends someone out on a mission on a holiday? This isn't even an American holiday. This is an everyone holiday. That's just…wrong," Morgan said.

"Surprisingly, the bad guys don't really seem to care about holidays," Chuck said sarcastically. "Nor do the people who tell the spies where to go."

"Is Sarah going to make it back by midnight?" Morgan asked.

"I don't know, Morgan!" Chuck replied, growing a little impatient with all the questions.

"So you're really just going to sit here all night and mope around and wait for her?" Morgan asked. "At least come have a drink with me and Awesome."

"Did you and Ellie switch bodies or something because you're starting to sound a lot like her," Chuck said.

"No, but oh man, that would be weird, what with Ellie's…you know," Morgan said, drawing a half-circle around his stomach to refer to Ellie's pregnancy.

"Look, I know it's a stupid and meaningless tradition, but it's the first new year's since Sarah and I became official, you know, and I just…I just really want to kiss her at midnight, and she was supposed to be back yesterday, and I apparently just don't want to face the fact that it's not going to happen this year," Chuck said.

"Of course you want to kiss her at midnight. She's your girl. That's not stupid," Morgan said. "Hey, man, she'll be here. I know it."

"How do you know it, Morgan?" Chuck asked.

"Because she's Sarah Walker! I don't know how she does it half the time, but she always finds a way," Morgan said. "Plus, when Sarah gets back, Casey gets back, and I'd really like to kiss Alex at midnight, so it'd be just my luck that Casey would show up in time to see that."

"Good luck, buddy," Chuck said.

Morgan left Chuck to rejoin the party, only to return to the fountain a little while later with a glass of champagne. He handed it to Chuck, who still hadn't moved all night, and sat back down.

"Here," Morgan said. "You look like you could use this."

Chuck took a sip and set the glass on the fountain's stones. "You giving up on Sarah, too?" he asked with a defeated tone of voice.

"What? No, man, don't give up. That girl would do _anything_ for you."

"I know she would, but Sarah doesn't really put a lot of stock in holidays, so I was kinda gonna surprise her with the whole passionate new year's kiss thing," Chuck said. "It's kind of pathetic, really. I can't keep something big and important like my proposal plan a secret, but something silly and obvious like holiday plans is a complete mystery to her."

"Well, that proposal thing was kind of my fault," Morgan said with a nervous laugh. "And I know for a fact she'll be here soon."

"Love your confidence, Morgan, but the fact that she's Sarah Walker doesn't mean the CIA pilot can fly any faster."

"Well, no," Morgan agreed. "But right before I walked over here, I saw her pull up out front. She'll be here any second."

"Really?" Chuck said, standing. He nervously toyed with both his shirt and his hair, trying to smooth both of them out. "She's here? Why didn't you open with that?"

"I told you Casey wouldn't miss this," Morgan sighed, taking a drink from his own glass of champagne. "How am I going to kiss Alex now?"

Chuck was about to answer when Sarah appeared in the entrance to the courtyard. Even though she had just gotten back from a super secret CIA mission, she looked just like a normal girl, dressed in dark, form-fitting jeans and a blue sweater. She looked around the party for him, her eyes lighting up when she finally spotted him by the fountain. Morgan slowly backed up as Sarah made her way towards him, a small smile on her face. They wordlessly linked their fingers together and held their hands between their bodies, against her chest, as they kissed.

"Want some champagne?" Chuck asked as they pulled apart.

Sarah smiled and shook her head. "But I will take another kiss if you're giving those out," she said sweetly.

Chuck smiled and leaned back in to capture her lips in another kiss. Before this kiss could deepen, it was interrupted by John Casey dropping a heavy bag by Sarah's feet.

"What do you think I am, Walker, your butler?" Casey grunted. He slapped Chuck on the back. "That's what Bartowski's for."

Sarah shot Casey a look as Chuck said politely, "Nice to see you, too, Casey. How did the mission go?"

"Can't talk," Casey said. "I've got a new mission now."

Chuck turned to Sarah with a look of disbelief on his face. "What? You're leaving again? Do I get to come this time?"

"Uh…no," Sarah giggled, having already been briefed on the mission Casey was referring to.

"No, moron. If the mission involved you or Walker, I would've said _we_ have a new mission," Casey said. "I've gotta stop Grimes from publicly groping my daughter at midnight. Excuse me."

"Oh, poor Morgan," Chuck sighed. "The guy just doesn't stand a chance, does he?"

Sarah chuckled again. "Not with Casey as the lookout," she said. "And to answer your earlier question, despite a few unexpected setbacks, the mission was ultimately a success."

"Good," Chuck said, leaning down for another kiss.

"Sarah!" Ellie Bartowski called from across the courtyard, interrupting their almost-kiss. Ellie made her way over to the couple. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to make it."

"You and me both," Sarah said, finally dropping Chuck's hands.

Ellie, doing her best despite her rapidly-expanding belly, wrapped Sarah in a hug. "You know, Sarah, I swear sometimes I worry about you as much as I worry about my little brother."

"That's sweet, Ellie, but I can assure you that I'm very good at what I do," Sarah said.

"I'm glad you're here," Ellie smiled before heading off to rejoin her husband.

Before Chuck could say anything to Sarah, Jeff and Lester popped out from behind either side of the fountain and approached the couple, suspicious looks on their faces.

"You seemingly came out of nowhere," Lester said to Sarah.

"She's sneaky," Jeff said.

"You guys are ones to talk!" Chuck exclaimed. Sarah instinctively moved a little bit closer to Chuck as Jeff and Lester got a little too close for comfort.

"Where were you?" Lester asked.

"I was on a business trip," Sarah said.

"Don't you work at the _yogurt_ place?" Jeff asked.

"Yes; I was attending a small business owners' conference in New York," Sarah said quickly, maintaining her cover. "My flight was delayed. Those snowstorms back in the east are a killer, you know. It makes me appreciate Burbank."

"Well, regardless of where you…_really_…were, we came over to ask if you would do the honors of kissing Jeffery here at midnight," Lester said.

Chuck rolled his eyes as Sarah shot him an alarmed look. She grabbed the champagne Morgan had brought over for Chuck and drained the glass. Sarah gave Chuck a small smile, handed him the empty glass, and picked up her bag.

"I am going to go shower and change into something a little nicer," she told Chuck. "I'll be back soon."

Sarah headed to her apartment without so much as acknowledging Jeff or Lester's question. Jeff and Lester shared a look.

"That wasn't a no!" Jeff said with delight.

"Forget about it," Chuck said. "Her lips are spoken for, _capiche_?"

Chuck, eager to get away from his coworkers, finally decided to join the party and began heading for the appetizer table. He didn't get very far before an alarmed Morgan ran up to him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa…where's Sarah going? We need her for the special midnight _mish_," Morgan said.

"We?" Chuck asked.

"You, I meant you," Morgan said. "Of course I meant you."

"Relax. It's an hour until midnight, and she's been on a plane for fourteen hours. She's just going to take a shower. She'll be back in, like, fifteen," Chuck said. "Oh, and just a head's up, Casey has decided to take on his own 'midnight mish.'"

Morgan laughed nervously. "Oh yeah? What's uh…what's that?"

"Hide," Chuck warned.

* * *

When the clock struck 11:40 PM, and Sarah still hadn't made a reappearance, Chuck ventured into the apartment to find her. He walked in calling, "Hey, you didn't let Jeff and Lester scare you off, did you? I know they can be creepy, but they're harmless…" He lowered his voice and added, "Mostly."

What he found when he rounded the corner into the hallway was a nearly-naked Sarah, standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, wearing nothing but a pair of black lace panties and a matching strapless bra. Despite her still fresh face, lip gloss and other makeup lie next to the hair dryer on the counter in front of her. Chuck stopped in the wide open doorway.

"Not that I don't like this view, but are you crazy? The apartment's unlocked. What if I were Morgan?" Chuck exclaimed. "Or, worse, Jeff, come looking for his kiss?"

Sarah instinctively, visibly shuddered, "Don't even remind me of that."

"Oh, come on, they don't teach you how to handle guys like that in _seduction school_?" he teased, putting on a goofy voice for those last two words. Sarah shot him a look.

"Chuck!" she said.

Chuck grinned and shrugged. "Easy shot. Had to do it."

"Right," Sarah said. She then shot him a grin as she reached back behind her and pushed the door back and forth a little with her bare foot. "And don't worry. I'm fast."

"Are you planning on being done with this in time to actually make it to the party?" Chuck teased.

Sarah picked up the watch she had left on the counter as she showered and cringed. "I'm sorry, Chuck. I didn't realize how long I'd been in here."

"You don't have to get all glammed up, you know. It's just us," he said. "And you're crazy beautiful without all of that."

She smiled. "Thank you…and you all just looked so nice out there; I wanted to dress up a little bit." She finally turned to face him, and Chuck's face instantly paled. "Is something wrong? That's not exactly the kind of reaction a girl in lingerie hopes to get from her boyfriend."

"You're injured!" Chuck exclaimed.

"What? Chuck, no, I'm not," she said with a laugh.

"Oh, so you gave yourself those bruises?" he asked, gesturing to her upper body.

"What are you talking about?" Sarah asked, looking towards to the mirror to examine herself. Sure enough, small, faint bruises covered her upper arms and shoulders.

"What happened?" Chuck asked.

"A couple of agents grabbed me. They were stronger than I anticipated, and it took me a minute to get away," Sarah explained. "How did you even see those from over there? It's barely noticeable, Chuck."

"Ah, maybe you think so, but you see, I have a _superbly_ awesome image of you stored right here," he said, tapping the side of his head. Chuck then moved his hand in circular motion to refer to Sarah's body as he said, "If something about _this_ changes, I'll know it."

"There's an image of me in the Intersect?" Sarah asked uncomfortably.

"No, of course not," Chuck said. He put on a wide grin and said, "That's all the Bartowski brain, baby."

Sarah's face softened into a smile, and she walked towards him, leaning up for a kiss. He cupped his hands around her face, and she started slowly inching him backwards down the hall as they made out.

"Where are we going?" he asked between kisses.

"Bedroom," she said. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too," he said as he turned, lightly grabbed her fingers, and led her into their bedroom. A green dress, still on its hanger, rested at the foot of the bed. "Oh, hey, is that what you're going to put on for the party?"

Sarah shut the door to the bedroom before grabbing the dress and hanging it back in their closet. Chuck frowned.

"Hey, what are you doing?" he asked.

Sarah crossed the room again and curled her body against Chuck's. She leaned up and kissed him, sensually caressing his neck with the tips of her fingers as their lips tangled together.

"Take your clothes off?" She said it as a question, not a statement. "Unless you really have your heart set on going back to that party…"

Chuck tightened his hold on the beautiful woman in his arms and said, "What party? There's a party?"

Outside at the party, Morgan, Jeff, Lester, and Awesome were gathered around Chuck's window. Aided by the soft glow of Chuck and Sarah's bedside lamps, they watched the couple's shadows through the heavy curtains that covered the glass. Chuck sat down at the foot of the bed, and Sarah stood in front of him, helping him get his shirt off before reaching around behind her back to unhook her bra. Once the garments had been tossed aside, Sarah's shadow climbed onto Chuck's lap, their lips locking as they fell back onto the bed and turned out the light.

"And that, my friends, is the last we'll see of Chuck Bartowski in 2010," Morgan said.

"How did Chuck get a girl like that?" Lester exclaimed. "It's not fair!"

Ellie chose that moment to join the cluster of men that were surrounding her brother's bedroom. She wrapped one arm around her husband's waist and rested the other across her stomach.

"What are we looking at?" Ellie asked with a smile.

"Chuck and Sarah are going to ring in the new year with their own special kind of fireworks, if you know what I mean," Awesome said.

"Definitely explosive things happening in there," Morgan agreed.

Ellie pulled her arm back and took a step away from her husband. "And you guys were watching?" she asked in horror. "That's disgusting, Devon!"

Ellie started walking away when Morgan called, "Well, hey, we were really just wondering if he was coming back!"

Devon shared a look with the Buy More crew before following Ellie and calling, "Babe, we couldn't even see anything!"

On the other side of the window, Chuck and Sarah were tightly intertwined on her side of their bed as they tenderly made love and shared gentle kisses, lovingly stroking the other's face and neck. They didn't make love like this, this leisurely, very often, and Sarah tightened the hold she had of his body against hers.

"Oh, _Chuck_," she sighed blissfully.

He peppered kisses along her jaw line, blazing a trail to her ear, and he sucked on the lobe for just a moment before whispering, "Hold on, honey."

Chuck gently rolled them over to his side of the bed, positioning Sarah on top of him. As soon as Sarah closed her eyes and tilted her head back, Chuck was mesmerized with watching her. His attention had focused solely on the way her lips fell open in pleasure while her long, blonde hair crept further and further down her bare back when the otherwise quiet room filled with the sounds of dozens of small explosions. Despite the colors filtering through the curtains from the courtyard outside, Sarah jumped. Before Chuck's mind could register what was happening, Sarah was standing by the mattress, in all her naked glory, facing the window in a shooting stance, gun from the bedside table raised and ready to fire in her hands.

"Wow, you _are_ fast," Chuck mumbled, more to himself than to her when he realized she was no longer in bed with him.

Despite the unexpected end to their lovemaking, Chuck couldn't help but grin when he looked at his girlfriend. A serious look on her face, she was staring at Chuck's covered window as if their lives were about to depend on it.

"Sarah," he laughed. "Those were most likely fireworks…not gunshots."

"Right, of course," she said, shrugging and lowering the gun to her side. "I knew that." Chuck couldn't hold it in any longer and burst out laughing. She scowled. "What's so funny?"

"Secret Agent Sarah Walker is scared of fireworks!" he teased. Upon her look, he added. "It's endearing, really."

"I am not _scared_ of fireworks. That's ridiculous," she said. She placed her gun back in its drawer and climbed over Chuck to lie beside him on the bed, pulling the covers up to her waist. "They just startled me a bit in this particular situation."

"Uh…excuse me, but I'm pretty sure that 'startle' is a synonym for 'frighten,' which is a synonym for 'scare,' so _ergo_, according to the English language, you are totally scared of fireworks," Chuck teased. "But let's focus on the more important issue at hand here, which is why is there a gun in our bedside table?"

Sarah shrugged. "Thirty foot rule," she said. "I thought you came around to that?"

"I did, but does your loaded weapon have to be thirty _inches_ from my head?" he asked. He tapped his head again, just as he had done earlier that night. "I mean, there are some _highly_ valuable goods in here. You don't even want the alarm clock that close to _your_…oh my god, the clock."

His eyes zeroed in on the red numbers glowing from Sarah's alarm clock on the other side of the room.

"What?" Sarah asked, concerned about Chuck's sudden change in demeanor.

"Of course…fireworks equals midnight," Chuck mumbled to himself. "Oh, I can't believe I screwed this up."

Chuck reached beneath him and pulled a pillow from under his head just so he could bring it around to his front and bury his face in it.

"What did you screw up?" Sarah asked.

"Oh, nothing. I just completely ruined New Year's Eve and probably New Year's Day, too, which means our entire year is _doomed_," he rambled before hiding his head back under his pillow. She knew he was exaggerating for dramatic effect, but she tugged at the pillow anyway.

"How did you ruin New Year's?" she asked. "Chuck, talk to me."

He moved the pillow back under his head and lay on his side to face her. She followed suit and rolled to her side as well.

"I just wanted to kiss you at midnight," he said. "Since it's the first New Year's that we're officially us, I just wanted it to be perfect." He wiggled his eyebrows at her, drawing a giggle from her and continued, "You know, turn on the smolder. Give you the New Year's kiss to end all New Year's kisses."

"So kiss me now," Sarah said with a slight grin.

"I can't do it now. It's after midnight. I missed it," Chuck sighed.

"You didn't miss it, Chuck. It's only 12:04, and no matter what time it happens, we'll still be sharing our first kiss of the new year with the one we love, which is the whole point of a New Year's kiss, right?" Sarah pointed out.

"It's not the same," Chuck pouted. "I'll just have to try again next year."

"You better not wait until next year to kiss me," she said.

"I spent all night wanting you to get here, and then you actually made it, and I still can't even do it right," he mumbled to himself, staring at the ceiling.

"Chuck," she said, a hint of firmness in her tone.

"Only thing I wanted to do tonight, and I missed it," he muttered.

"_Chuck_!" Sarah said forcefully, drawing his attention back to her. "Will you just _kiss _me already?"

Their lips met in a passionate kiss, drawing slight moans from both of them at the renewed connection. She shifted onto her back as they kissed, and he moved on top of her again, kissing her harder. Their tongues continued to dance together until Sarah pulled back slightly and caressed his cheek.

"See?" she whispered, soothingly rubbing her hand down his back. "We didn't miss it."

He placed another soft kiss on her lips and pulled back just far enough to give her one of his patented Chuck grins. "Happy New Year, Sarah."

She smiled and laced her fingers with his. "Happy New Year, Chuck."

* * *

_Thanks for reading! Please review and let me know how my 1__st__ Chuck story went. Maybe I'll see you guys around here again soon!_


End file.
